Aburatsu

JWe have our first excursion with the ship today. The berth where we are docked is quite a way from the town. We have to meet at 8.50 and we board the bus at 9.10. It is well organised. Our guide is Mitchi and she is fantastic. She gives us a lot of information over the 5 hours of the tour. She gives us all the ins and outs of Japanese toilets particularly the electronic features of the bidet, which I must say we are getting used to. Hard not to like warm water and hot air being blown up you bum.

Our first stop is a brewery wher Shochu is distilled. Shochu can be distilled from rice, sweet potato and other vegetables. This brewery specialises in sweet potato. We try some straight and with water. It is not to our liking it is 25 to 45% alcohol and tastes like it.

Next is the souvenir stop with lookout. It was more like a supermarket with lookout.

Our final stop was a Shinto shrine on Aoshima Island. This was very interesting. It also started to rain a little, just annoying but quickly stopped after 10 mins. We learnt there are over 8 million deities in the Shinto religion and most Japanese practice Shinto and Bhuddism. To celebrate births, marriages, birthdays they will make an offering to the Shinto gods for deaths they revert to Bhuddism. At the shrine we participated in a cleansing, made an offering and said a prayer. On our return to the ship the rain set in.

At dinner tonight Ann thought she recognised a couple from NZ whom we had sailed with 6 years ago. They were sitting a couple of tables away. On leaving I asked them if they were the couple from NZ and they were! We are going to meet up for drinks tomorrow afternoon.